Saturday, December 2, 2017

It's a Wonderful Life

It's officially holiday season! Woohoo! Yeeeeah.

I DID THIS ENTIRE POST AND IT DIDN'T SAVE AND SO NOW I AM DOING IT FOR THE SECOND TIME. AHHHH!

The Fam Bam

Ben, Jamie, Brian, Michelle, Rudy, and Desmond came to stay with us for Thanksgiving. They went to the shooting range one day

 And we went to the Arizona Science center one day. (This is me dallin and brian)








Me and Desmo just chillin
Rudy loved playing in the yard and the weather was beautiful so we went out there like every day.




Melissa and Matt Got Married!

And then they went to Bora Bora. lol I'm so sad they didn't take me. Just kidding! Bora Bora is on our list of places we wanna go some day. (Along with greece, italy, england, australia, mediteranean cruise, all of the places in that one Beach Boys song)......  Anyway we got new cameras!
Look at it and say "oooooh" and "aaaaaah".
She's a beaut. 
We were practicing with them before the wedding.
omg look how fluffy and cute Jojo is. I could eat her. (I know that reaction doesn't make sense lol) 


 You'll see when I'm done editing the video, but it is great! We only took a few pictures.
It was so fun partying with them and seeing them and Elizabeth and Joel.


 Congrats newly weds!
We were the fun table. lol

 And this is the process dallin and I go through when trying to take a picture. I end up spaz-ey and he's like "what are we doing" and doesn't want to smile with teeth. lol


 ðŸ˜€ðŸ˜€




 There we  go. Finally made it happen.

 For some reason, they don't have the same problem. hahaha

 Cute decor and they had an ice-cream truck come!


Lets Say Thanks and Eat and Watch Football and stuff!

(Which could be seen as a normal day for us, but whatever it's a holiday.) That's what thanksgiving is all about right?! Family, food, and football. Here's cute "Rude-Ma-good" and the rest of our visitors. 





 Look how gorgeous it is here in the winter. We would literally be out back for hours.

 MY SOCK LINE! hahahahaha  Like father like daughter.

His reaction to S'mores :)
 Dallin is so artistic he can make toy cars look beautiful!
 Ah, good times.

 Thanksgiving Day!
We had such a good Thanksgiving. It was laid back and casual but still really good, cute, and fun. 

Dallin is such a good photographer!
My cute tablescape
Football, food and family!
This was our feast! Rudy said a great prayer and I said a great toast! 
So delicious and not that time consuming to make. I think I gained like 5 pounds throughout the week actually.
6:30am waiting in line at HBH the day before. #worthit
Where is Rudy's head?

The other reason it was awesome is that the boys did the dishes! lol yessssss.
My family all got together at my uncle's in Illinois so my dad sent me this of him and Calvin

So I sent him one back.
Jamie and I doing some pore-cleansing.

Skype with Hawaii
Michelle and I went to see Justice League and it was so good!
Jamie made us pies for dessert and look at that mouthful that the Rudster has! hahaha

What's the saying? "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.".....?  

So we made the empty room into another guest room with the blow up bed. It's pretty comfy too! And a small tv in there and I'm glad we did because Rudy used it a lot.
This was just an excuse for me to decorate more so of course I took it!
I got to go to Hobby Lobby again :) hehehe
Made the office into another room for someone to sleep in.



Dallin and I made that sign together!

Vegas, baby!

"I didn't invent hip hop, but I was there!" If you haven't seen the movie What Happens In Vegas then you won't get that reference and we also can't be friends. 
We got a room with a view of the strip and that was cool. Using the hotel tonight app we didn't spend that much either.
We were only there for 3 days but it was still so fun!
 We went with Jon and Kelso and we saw the Blue Man group! I loved it.

This fancy restaurant called Joe's sea food will rock your world. 

Move over Ruth's Chris- this is now my favorite restaurant. All the waiters wear tuxedos! And the food is divine!
 Party like it's 1999 lol




 We also went to a spa and OMG. It was by far the most amazing spa experience of my whole life.

 And we gambled a lot and I actually had a lot of fun doing it! (I usually just watch but this time I played and I loved it.) We would win and then lose and win and then lose and so in the end we ended up going home with like 60$ more dollars. So not bad.
 This cool mexican restaurant
We went to a sports bar to watch the iron bowl with jon and kelso, and Jon's phone camera is amaze balls.



That is my favorite spa.


I know you may not like Trump, but let me tell you, he makes a heck of a hotel and spa. This was so freaking beautiful and relaxing.





It was so cool to see all the fun holiday decorations in vegas. Everywhere we went was decked out!
So many cool things to see and do. It was laid back and exactly what we needed.

Molding Young Minds and Stuff

Some days it feels like inspiring and molding minds and making a difference in the future generation. Some days it feels like survival, bribery, and law enforcement. lol 
I have students that are loving our quad ball week and I have others who are acting like I am torturing them. (Quad ball is a combination of 4 sports at once and I have never heard of people not liking that game, but there are some here who are dying for it to end. I don't get it cuz it's my favorite.) 
Thanksgiving brought some cute notes and gifts, and then there was one student who asked to change teachers. So I'm just learning the balance between doing my best/striving for improvement and not allowing opinions dictate my happiness/job enjoyment. It's a fine line because I always want to hear people out and get better, but I also know that if I try to please every single person I will always fail. I am glad that both Dallin and I have that mindset because there are so many people that we've both interacted with who refuse to see their own room for improvement. I am scared of becoming that, and I think sometimes I can be sensitive to what people think about me, so I'm trying to be in the middle. Keep that side of myself while still staying consistent with what needs to happen even if people don't like it.

Bringing back the early 2000's with my waver the other day. Whit woo! lol I seriously felt like I was 16 again.
Running routes for football
Notes from students


baseball in the beautiful weather
We had a half day for veterans day and we spent the time doing a service project for veterans
We got free massages at work a couple weeks ago!

Early morning weights class. I help do makeups for those who need the credit when they've missed, and then also teach the swimmers.
This was on the field one day. Gory right? That was not a peaceful passing for that poor bird. Looks like he imploded. lol 

OMG IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!

       "Santa! I know him!"          "Have you seen these toilets? They're ginormous!"
lol try and keep up with my movie references. Apparently they are plentiful in this post.
I was so stoked to put up the christmas decorations. I put up the old tree in the back living room with all of our sentimental decorations and I was crying because it took me down memory lane. My mom gives us an ornament for every milestone, so we have one from our first christmas together, buying our first house, getting the dogs, getting married and engaged. So cute. I have one from doing pageants, working at summit, from kim my old director, some that selena made, some that I remember buying when we were in provo. It's just crazy to think how the time has flown. This will be our 6th christmas together (2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 because we weren't together in '11 or '12.)
Then we got a new tree for the front room! OMG I am obsessed and we named her Noel. lol epic.

It reaches the top of the stairs!


Painting the Town

This was from a while back when we went to a casino with lexi justin and jon. It was so fun! We just danced while dallin and Jon played poker. 


Speaking of the Mayne's, little Olivia had to be in the hospital for about a week. Poor girl, but she is all better now!
We love when Jon visits us! 
This was from when dallin went to utah for work and he went out with shilo and chaz :)

The very end of XC

Dallin said to me the other night, "Don't smile because it ended, cry because it happened." He always nails those sayings.
These are pictures of our banquet. 

I made them a video and they loved it!

Here is the cross country video.


I loved the company, location, speeches, food, and season. This was a brand new program that we had to start up from scratch, so at first we weren't very good. From the very beginning the students took ownership over the team and helped create what htey wanted it to be. We ended up putting the first 4 trophies into the trophy case for our school and placed 5th in the state! I am so proud of each of them for the people they are and for how much their running has improved. I feel lucky that I got to be apart of this with such amazing young people.
These were all the gifts and medals that we handed out at the banquet. It meant so much to me that they wanted to give me anything. The medals turned out really cool! (Disregard that big pile of laundry in the background lol)
I thought this was funny when I was at the place where I got the medals. LOL

 So CAUTE.

We have been really into doing masks lately. It's so relaxing and it's nice when you get the paper ones because there's no scrubbing or peeling to get it off. They're only 2 bucks at walmart so we buy tons! 
The one on my face was gold and soooo slimey!
It was the weirdest feeling mask but I loved it so much. hahaha 
Look at my fat girl grin in this picture! hahaha
I'm probably thinking about how excited I am to eat that cake. lol This is a cute wine bar by our house and we went out to dinner there.
Josie loves the carrier because it means constant cuddles!

I tried to do this side-braid-bun thing, and I got some compliments but it kinda made me feel amish. I like their food, but not their style.
This is the scene I have to leave every morning for work. How sad that I can't go back to sleep!
OMG!
Lexi gave me some lipsense and I have been liking it. It looks good but I can't figure out how to really make it last the full 24 hours. It starts to flake off for me.
This is 2 different colors layered.
The PTA brought in pumpkin spice cupcakes for us and a few other treats to thank us before Thanksgiving break and they were so good!
I got my dress for the clearlink party a little early this year. lol I need to start dieting now.

 Renovating

I was so upset that the renovation that we paid for (specifically for thanksgiving) wasn't done for thanksgiving. I seriously cried when the contractor told me on the phone that yet another mistake had been made and he was making up another excuse. Maybe one day we'll get the thing that we paid for 2 and a half months ago. But, this isn't the only thing in my life that has been teaching me to let go of the things that I can't control and be grateful for what I do have.
All I know is, if I ever move again, I am buying a turn-key house and not doing any updating. 

Our High Maintenance Kids

Josie had ear infections, Jake's back problems, and they both needed shots so it was an expensive month. The nurse we had was a noob so she was awful at taking the temp and giving the shots so Josie was terrified. 



Coop watched our pups while we were in Vegas and then came over to game a little bit.
The weather is still mid 70's so it's gorgeous out back.
I got a new windshield! And in AZ insurance covers it all the way!

More tree pics. I love Christmas










Dallin has such a fun time with our new cameras. He loves it and he is so good at finding the creative shots. They look so good!






Elizabeth's wedding video

I'm so glad this was the last one we had to do with our phones and imovie. We got adobe and the cameras so we are becoming more and more professional!

-Merry Christmas! From The Graffs